THE
ECONOMICS
OF BREXIT IN
VOTERS’ EYES
(OR, WHY THE REMAIN
CAMPAIGN FAILED)
John Curtice, Senior Research Fellow at NatCen and
Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University
The Economics of Brexit in Voters’ Eyes
(or, Why the Remain Campaign Failed)
The centrepiece of the Remain campaign in the EU referendum was that Britain’s economy
would suffer if the country voted to Leave. Yet in the event that is precisely what a majority
voted to do. So why did the Remain side’s economic arguments prove insufficient?
In this paper we assess some of the possible influences on people’s attitudes towards
the economic consequences of leaving the EU. Were those who are subjectively or
objectively less well-off at present less likely to reckon that exiting the EU would do
much harm? Were voters doubtful about the credibility of those who were advocating the
Remain side’s economic case? Or were voters simply unwilling to consider the economic
arguments about remaining in or leaving the EU separately from their concerns about the
impact of membership on immigration and identity?
INTRODUCTION
The centrepiece of the Remain campaign in the referendum on the UK’s membership of the
European Union was that it was in the country’s economic interest to stay a member (Behr,
2016; Oliver, 2016). Membership gave the UK unfettered access for both goods and services
to a large single market of over 500 million people. This, it was argued, made the country an
attractive place for inward investment that in turn helped create many a job held down by a worker
in Britain. Given that the renegotiation of the UK’s terms of membership agreed between David
Cameron and the EU in February 2016 had made it clear that the country was not signed up to
closer political integration and afforded some potential relief from the welfare costs associated
with inward EU migration, the Remain campaign claimed there was every reason why the country
should seek to continue to enjoy the economic benefits that membership brought.
Not that the economic argument was always presented in quite this way. Rather than focusing on
what might be gained from continued membership of the EU, the Remain camp often emphasised
what it thought would be the losses that would arise from leaving. Thus the Treasury argued that
leaving the EU would cost every household £4,300 a year by 2030 (HM Treasury, 2016a). The
Chancellor advised he would have to introduce an emergency budget in order to plug a £30bn
‘black hole’ in the country’s finances that would immediately be created by a decision to leave
(BBC News Online, 2016). Meanwhile voters were advised that the cost of their shopping would
increase by £220 a year if they voted to leave (HM Treasury, 2016b). Still, the message was clear.
Voting to Remain was economically sensible; voting to Leave was economic folly.
Indeed, even though the referendum is over, the debate about the economics of the Brexit
decision still continues, albeit in a slightly different guise. Now it focuses on what the UK’s future
relationship with the EU should be given that the UK has actually voted to leave. Advocates of
a so-called ‘soft Brexit’ argue that it is essential that the UK retains its current level of access to
the single market, and that it should be endeavouring by one means or another to achieve that
objective. Other objectives, such as being able to impose limits on migration from the EU, should,
they claim, not be allowed stand in the way of delivering that. Their claims are disputed by those
who would prefer a ‘hard Brexit’, in which the UK would be able to make its own decisions about
immigration and could seek to make trade deals with countries outside the EU.
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
In this paper we look at what appears to have shaped voters’ attitudes to the economic
consequences of remaining in or leaving the EU, and why the Remain camp’s messages ultimately
proved insufficient to win the day for them. One possibility is that voters’ attitudes reflect their
personal circumstances. Whatever the benefits or disbenefits of leaving the EU for the country as
a whole, voters may have been more concerned about the implications for themselves. Perhaps
those who were economically less well-off – either objectively or subjectively – did not feel that
the claims of the Remain camp applied to themselves. From their personal perspective EU
membership looked like a bad deal.
On the other hand, perhaps what was crucial was not the perceived relevance of the Remain
side’s messages about the economics of Brexit, but rather voters’ feelings about the sources
of those messages. Voters’ attitudes and evaluations are often thought to be influenced by the
cues they receive from those they do – and do not – trust (Bowler and Donovan, 1998; Hobolt
2007; Lupia 1994), and it is certainly possible to identify potential reasons why voters might
have distrusted some of those who were arguing the economic case in favour of staying in the
EU. For example, given the fallout from the financial crash of 2008, voters might well have been
mistrustful of anyone with an association with a financial institution. Meanwhile, following the
MPs expenses scandal of 2009, politicians’ reputational stock often seems to be low nowadays
too. Consequently, maybe the views of these established ‘experts’ were discounted. At the same
time, though, perhaps some politicians are more influential than others and identifying who those
politicians were is crucial to an understanding of public attitudes towards the economics of leaving
the EU.
Both these perspectives, however, share an assumption – that people’s views about the
economics of the EU can be isolated from their opinions of other aspects of EU membership.
The debate about the UK’s membership, both during the referendum and since, has certainly
not focused on economics alone. It has also been about its implications for immigration, what it
means for the UK’s sovereignty and its apparent impact on the country’s sense of identity. These
issues seemed to be of particular importance to those who voted to leave (Curtice, 2016a), and
were encapsulated in the Leave campaign’s invitation ‘to take back control’. Perhaps we will
discover that people’s views of the economics of leaving the EU were shaped and influenced by
their wider perceptions of the consequences of institutional membership, and that in the event
any expectation that the Remain side might have had that voters could be persuaded to consider
the economics of leaving the EU separately from the other implications of such a decision was
not fulfilled.
Our evidence comes from two main sources. The first is the 2015 British Election Study (BES)
internet panel. This survey has interviewed 30,000 people via the internet on a regular basis
since February 2014 (British Election Study, 2016). So far as the EU referendum is concerned,
we are interested in the findings of the three most recent waves of interviewing; these were
conducted (a) in the weeks immediately before the local and devolved elections at the beginning
of May, (b) in the period in between those elections and the referendum, and (c), in the fortnight or
so immediately after the June 23rd ballot. The size of this survey and the wide range of questions
that it asked enable us to delve into what might have shaped people’s attitudes towards the
economics of EU membership more deeply than is possible with any other source. However,
where they help corroborate or illuminate the evidence of the BES survey, we supplement this
source by referring to the findings of a number of other polls and survey exercises, including a
mixed mode re-interview study of respondents to the 2015 British Social Attitudes survey that
was conducted by NatCen between mid-May and mid-June 2016 (Carbrera-Alvarez et al, 2016).
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
3
PERCEPTIONS
First of all, however, we should examine the distribution of attitudes towards the economics of
leaving the EU. To what extent did the public accept or reject the arguments put forward by the
Remain side that exiting the EU would prove disadvantageous for the UK economy? The BES
panel study asked the following question on both of the waves of interviewing that it conducted
before the referendum:
Do you think the following would be better, worse, or about the same if the
UK leaves the European Union?
The general economic situation in the UK
One key point is immediately apparent from Table 1. On both occasions when the question was
asked more people felt that the economy would be worse if the UK left the EU than felt it would
be better. On the second occasion, for example, 35% felt that it would be worse while only 23%
felt that it would be better. The figures for the first wave of interviewing are much the same. The
arguments of the Remain side about the economics of leaving the EU appear, then, to have been
relatively persuasive.
Table 1 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU
April/May
May/June
%
%
4
4
Better
20
19
About the same
33
32
Worse
26
27
Much Worse
5
8
Don’t Know
12
11
Expect economy to be…
Much better
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8
The BES is far from alone in painting this picture. In the mixed mode study that it conducted
between mid-May and mid-June 2016, NatCen asked its respondents:
And if Britain were to leave the EU, do you think Britain’s economy would
be better off, worse off, or wouldn’t it make much difference?
While rather fewer sat on the fence in response to this question – not least because respondents
were not afforded the opportunity to say, ‘Don’t Know’ - again rather more (40%) felt that the
economy would be worse off than believed it would be better off (30%). Equally, in response to
a question that YouGov had in fact been asking regularly from as long ago as 2012, 40% said
in the company’s final poll conducted just before polling day that they thought Britain would be
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
economically worse off if it left the EU, while only 23% reckoned it would be better off (YouGov,
2016a). There would appear to be little doubt that the Remain side had the better of the economic
argument in the eyes of voters.
However, we should also note another feature that all three sources have in common. They all
report that the proportion of people who felt that Britain would be worse off as a result of leaving
the EU was well below 50%. In focusing on the fact that more people said Britain would be worse
off than said it would be better off we are at risk of missing the crucial point that those who thought
the country would be worse off still only represented a minority. Given that winning a referendum
entails securing the support of over half of those who cast a vote, the Remain campaign was in
fact well short of its target level of support so far as its economic message was concerned.
Indeed, the relative weakness of the Remain side’s economic argument becomes apparent if we
look at what happened when the question was turned around and voters were asked what they
thought the implications for the economy were of being in the EU. The BES, for example, also
asked the following question on two occasions before the referendum:
How much do you agree or disagree that the EU has made Britain more
prosperous?
As Table 2 shows, it suggests that opinion was no more than evenly balanced on the benefits
of EU membership. When the question was asked the second time around, for example, just as
many (31%) disagreed that the EU had made Britain more prosperous as agreed (31%). Equally,
when YouGov asked in one of its polls at the beginning of June, ‘And if Britain REMAINS in the
European Union, do you think it would benefit or damage the British economy, or would it make
no real difference?’, just 19% thought that it would benefit the economy, actually rather less than
the 24% who thought that it would do damage. The most common view by far (43%) was simply
that it ‘would make no real difference’ (YouGov, 2016b).
Table 2 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Bring in the EU
April/May
May/June
%
%
4
5
Agree
25
26
Neither Agree Nor Disagree
28
28
Disagree
24
24
7
7
12
10
EU had made Britain more prosperous
Strongly Agree
Strongly Disagree
Don’t Know
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
5
In short, when voters were assessing the economic consequences of leaving the EU many
were not doing so on the back of a conviction that Britain’s economy had actually significantly
benefitted from the status quo. This meant that the Remain side’s preferred campaign tactic of
focusing on what it thought would be the adverse economic consequences of leaving the EU
faced the obstacle that many a voter was far from convinced that there was a great deal of value
to be lost in the first place. Just 7% of those who disagreed that the EU had made the UK more
prosperous expected the economy to be worse if we left the EU, compared with as many as 78%
of those who felt the EU had made the UK more prosperous.
IMPORTANCE
But how far did these perceptions matter? So far in this paper we have assumed that they did.
Before trying to unravel what helped to shape people’s perceptions we should check that this
assumption is valid. Maybe the key failure of the Remain campaign was not so much that it failed
to persuade people of the merits of its economic arguments as that it did not persuade them of
their relevance to the decision being made on June 23rd.
Of this, however, there is no sign. According to the BES, no less than 93% of those who thought
before polling day that the economy would be worse if the UK left the EU eventually voted for
Remain. Conversely, 90% of those who thought the economy would be better voted to Leave. No
other evaluation included in the BES survey differentiates as strongly between Remain and Leave
voters as this. Equally, although the NatCen panel found that perceptions of the implications
of EU membership for Britain’s distinctive sense of identity were what distinguished between
Remain and Leave supporters most of all, people’s views of the economic consequences came
a close second. At the same time, YouGov’s last poll before polling day found that no less than
95% of those who thought that Britain would be economically worse off as a result of leaving
intended to vote to Remain, while 94% of those who reckoned it would be economically better off
were proposing to vote to Leave. In truth, people’s perceptions of the economic consequences of
remaining in or leaving the EU could hardly have been any more important in influencing voters’
referendum choice. Understanding what shaped those perceptions is thus central to any effort at
understanding and interpreting the referendum result.
PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCE
Our first line of inquiry into what shaped those perceptions is to consider whether voters’
views depended on their personal circumstances. Perhaps those who felt they were doing well
economically – or might be regarded objectively as falling into that category – were more likely to
think that leaving the EU would be economically disadvantageous. They, after all, would seem to
have most reason to feel that they were doing relatively well from a status quo in which the UK
is a member of the EU.
There is, however, very little indication that this was the case. Table 3 illustrates the point by
showing how perceptions of the economic consequences of leaving the EU varied according to
people’s evaluations of their own personal circumstances, as evidenced by their response to the
following question:
How does the financial situation of your household now compare with what
it was 12 months ago?
Respondents could answer by choosing one response from of a set of possible answers that
ranged from ‘got a lot worse’ to ‘got a lot better’. As Table 3 shows, those who felt that their
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
personal economic circumstances had got worse during the last year were, if anything, slightly
more inclined to believe that the economy would get worse if the UK left the EU, that is the opposite
of what we were anticipating. While 35% of those who felt that their personal circumstances had
got better believed that the economy would get worse as a result of leaving the EU, 39% of those
who felt their circumstances had got worse were of that view.
Table 3 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Personal
Retrospective Evaluations
Household’s Financial Situation has got….
A Lot Better
A Little Better
Stayed the same
A Little Worse
A Lot Worse
Expect economy
after leaving the
EU to be
%
%
%
%
%
Better
30
25
21
23
24
Same
27
29
37
30
24
Worse
33
36
33
38
42
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8
Much the same picture is obtained if we look at other subjective perceptions, such as people’s
evaluations of the performance of the economy as a whole or the extent to which they feel they
are at risk of becoming unemployed or falling into poverty. In none of these cases is there an
apparent link with people’s views about the economic consequences of leaving the EU.
Meanwhile, those who are objectively less well off, as evidenced by their reported household
income, also do not seem to be especially distinctive in their evaluations of the economic
consequences of leaving the EU. Table 4 shows that while, at 44%, those in households with the
highest incomes are somewhat more likely to think that leaving the EU would make the economy
worse, otherwise the level of household income seems to make only a small difference to the
likelihood of someone holding that view.
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
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Table 4 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Reported Gross
Household Income
Reported Gross Household Income
Less than £15K
£15K-£30K
£30K-£45K
£45K or more
Expect economy after
leaving the EU to be
%
%
%
%
Better
25
25
23
18
Same
31
33
34
31
Worse
30
33
35
44
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Wave 8
It seems then that for the most part people’s evaluations of the economic consequences of
leaving the EU were not much shaped by their personal economic circumstances. Those who are
subjectively or objectively less well-off were not especially less likely to think that the economy
would get worse if Britain left. We evidently need to look elsewhere to understand why the
message of the Remain campaign appears sometimes to have fallen on stony ground.
SOURCES
Our second line of inquiry is to consider people’s attitudes towards the sources of the messages
that they received. Much of the financial world, including most economists, supported the Remain
side’s claim that leaving the EU would be economically harmful for the UK. But, as we suggested
earlier, perhaps many a voter was reluctant to accept advice from people whose expertise and
disinterestedness they had come to doubt in the wake of the financial crash. After all, the British
Social Attitudes survey had shown a dramatic decline, from 92% in 1986 to 19% in 2009, in the
proportion of people who felt that banks were ‘well run’ (Park et al., 2013), with only a partial
reversal of that trend back to 34% by 2014. At the same time the 2014 survey also found that only
just over half (53%) said that they trusted ‘high street banks and financial institutions’.
Meanwhile, politicians of all parties have never been the most popular of professions (Lee and
Young, 2013). But maybe some were liked and trusted more than others in the referendum, and
thus were better able to persuade voters of the merits of their views. Perhaps one of the problems
faced by the Remain side is that those who were advocating its economic case were regarded
less favourably by the public and/or simply proved relatively ineffective at persuading people of
the benefits of staying in the EU.
The BES asked its respondents one question on the first of these themes. It echoed a comment that
was famously articulated in a Sky television interview by one of the leading Leave campaigners,
Michael Gove. When asked in this interview to name an economist who backed his position,
Mr Gove replied, ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’. In the BES question
respondents were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statement:
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
I’d rather put my trust in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions
of experts
As Table 5 shows, experts struggled to compete with ordinary people in respondents’ eyes. When
interviewed before the referendum, 38% agreed with the proposition, while only 25% disagreed.
Immediately after the vote the balance was a little more even, with 35% agreeing and 32%
disagreeing, but even so the pattern of responses still suggested widespread scepticism about
the expertise of experts.
Table 5 Perceptions of the Relative Wisdom of Ordinary People and Experts
Pre-Referendum
Post-Referendum
%
%
9
9
Agree
29
26
Neither Agree nor Disagree
30
28
Disagree
20
21
Strongly Disagree
5
11
Don’t Know
6
5
Strongly Agree
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7-9.
Which particular kinds of experts are distrusted cannot be determined from the BES. However,
some polling conducted shortly before the referendum certainly suggests that economists
and financial institutions may well have been amongst those that voters had in mind. In a poll
conducted just 10 days before referendum day by YouGov for what is, perhaps, many an expert’s
favourite listening - the Today programme - only 38% said that they trusted economists on the
question of Britain’s membership of the EU, while 39% stated that they did not trust them. ‘People
from the Bank of England’ came off even worse; just 36% said that they trusted them, while 45%
said they distrusted them. ‘People from well-known businesses’ were in the same boat; 37% said
that they trusted their utterances on the EU, but 43% did not (YouGov, 2016c). In short, it would
appear that many a voter was willing to discount the views of many an economic and financial
expert, most of whom were inclined to support remaining in the EU.
Meanwhile, the BES confirms that distrust of expertise often went together with a belief that
the economy would not get worse if the UK left the EU (see Table 6). Just 22% of those who
agreed that they preferred to trust ordinary people rather than experts said that they expected
the economy to get worse as a result of leaving the EU. In contrast, well over half (58%) who
preferred the wisdom of experts took that view. Much the same contrast can be seen in YouGov’s
polling. For example, while 63% of Remain voters said that they trusted economists, only 21%
of Leave supporters said that they did so. In short, the disinclination of many a voter to believe
the expertise upon which the Remain side was relying does appear to have been a significant
handicap in that campaign’s attempts to persuade the public of its economic case.
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
9
Table 6 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Perceptions of
the Relative Wisdom of Ordinary People and Experts
I’d rather put my trust in the wisdom of ordinary people than the opinions of experts
Strongly
Agree
Agree
Neither Agree
nor Disagree
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Expect economy
after leaving the
EU to be
%
%
%
%
%
Better
42
30
20
14
12
Same
34
37
35
25
16
Worse
17
24
35
54
71
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8.
A similar, though less stark pattern is to be found when looking at people’s attitudes towards
politicians in general. Asked to give a score of between 1 and 7 to indicate how much they trusted
MPs, no less than 58% of BES respondents gave them a score of between 1 and 3 (signifying
the trusted MPs relatively little). Only 20% offered one of between 5 and 7. Amongst the latter
group 42% said that they thought the economy would get worse if the UK left the EU, whereas
only 23% of those who gave MPs a score of just one (meaning that they had no trust in them at
all) took that view.
However, that does not necessarily mean that all politicians are tarred with the same brush in
the eyes of voters. Perhaps some are more credible than others. Let us, for example, compare
voters’ attitudes towards the two people who were de facto the leaders of the Remain and Leave
camps, David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Mr Cameron was clearly the less popular. Asked
during the referendum campaign to give him a mark out of ten to say how much they liked him,
nearly half (48%) of BES respondents gave Mr Cameron a score of three or less while only just
over one in five (21%) gave him a score of seven or more. In contrast, only just over one in three
(35%) reckoned Mr Johnson merited a score of three or less while almost as many (34%) gave
him a mark of seven or more.
This contrast was also in evidence, albeit less starkly so, when polls asked voters how much
they trusted the two gentlemen’s utterances on the EU. According to YouGov, as polling day
approached just 20% said that they trusted Mr Cameron’s claims about Britain’s membership of
the EU either ‘a lot’ or ‘a little’, while as many as 44% said that they did not trust them at all. In the
case of Mr Johnson, 26% said that they trusted his statements a lot or a little, while 36% did not
do so at all. Similarly, Opinium reported that only 24% felt that Mr Cameron had been convincing
when talking about Britain and the EU, while 63% reckoned he had been unconvincing. The
equivalent figures for Mr Johnson were 37% and 48% respectively (Opinium, 2016).
But even more striking is the contrast that emerges when we look at the extent to which perceptions
of the two politicians were linked to their views about the economic consequences of leaving the
EU (see Table 7). In the case of Boris Johnson the link is clear. Only 13% of those who liked the
de facto Leave leader reckoned that Britain’s economy would be worse as a result of leaving the
EU, while no less than 62% of those who disliked him took that view. In the case of Mr Cameron,
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
in contrast, whether people liked or disliked him made relatively little apparent difference to their
views about the economic consequences of leaving the EU.
Table 7 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Attitudes towards
David Cameron and Boris Johnson
Attitude towards David Cameron
Expect economy after
leaving the EU to be
Like
Neither
Dislike
Better
26
21
24
Same
35
37
29
Worse
33
33
39
Attitude towards Boris Johnson
Expect economy after
leaving the EU to be
Like
Neither
Dislike
Better
40
21
10
Same
41
38
21
Worse
13
32
62
Like: Score of 7-10; Neither: Score of 4-6; Dislike: Score of 0-3.
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Wave 8
A similar contrast is to be found if we look at some of the other principal players in the referendum
campaign. Michael Gove was, for example, more popular than George Osborne. And while
people’s views about Mr Gove are related to their perceptions of the economic consequences of
leaving the EU, for the most part their views about Mr Osborne again showed little such link. It is
only when we come to a non-Conservative politician associated with the Remain campaign, such
as Jeremy Corbyn, that any kind of link emerges; those who liked the Labour leader were more
likely to think that the economy would be worse if we left the EU.
Such an analysis does, of course, have to be treated with care. It may be the case that voters
like Mr Johnson because they agree with him on the EU rather than that they have taken their
cue about what to think about the economics of the EU from him. But the fact that there is
no apparent link between people’s perceptions of Mr Cameron (or indeed the then Chancellor,
George Osborne) and their views about the economic debate certainly suggests that few voters
took their cue from him and that, consequently, he proved a relatively unpersuasive advocate for
the Remain campaign. This is, of course, all of a piece with the evidence that many of those who
had voted for the Conservatives in 2015 voted to Leave in the EU Referendum (Curtice, 2016b).
Mr Cameron was unable to take his party’s supporters with him; in contrast, it is at least possible
that Mr Johnson had some success in dissuading voters of the merits of the Remain side’s case.
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
11
AN INSEPARABLE DEBATE?
The third possibility that we should examine is, in essence, that it was always difficult to persuade
voters of the merits of the economic case for remaining in the EU when other considerations, such
as the perceived implications for immigration and the country’s sense of identity, were inclining
them in the direction of a vote to Leave. After all, the debate about immigration is in part a debate
about the extent to which and for whom a flow of migrants into the UK is economically beneficial
(Nickell and Saleheen, 2015). Meanwhile voters who see the EU as a ‘threat’ to their country’s
identity may well be reluctant to ascribe to it any more beneficial characteristic. If that is the case,
an attempt to persuade voters of the economic case for remaining that did not address their other
concerns was, perhaps, always at risk of proving ineffective.
Certainly identity and immigration were two aspects of the debate about the EU where the position
of the Remain side did not find much favour with many voters. First of all, as Table 8 shows, just
under a half (46%) consistently agreed that ‘being a member of the European Union undermines
Britain’s distinctive identity’, while only around three in ten disagreed. This echoes the finding that
NatCen’s mixed mode panel obtained when it asked its respondents the same question; exactly
a half agreed with the proposition, while 31% disagreed.
Table 8 Perceptions of the Implications of EU membership for Britain’s identity
April/May
May/June
Being a member of the European Union
undermines Britain’s distinctive identity
%
%
Strongly Agree
19
20
Agree
27
26
Neither Agree Nor Disagree
16
15
Disagree
22
23
Strongly Disagree
7
8
Don’t Know
8
8
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8
Meanwhile, there was a widespread expectation amongst the public that immigration would fall
if the UK left the EU. As Table 9 shows, the BES found that well over a half felt that immigration
would be lower in the event of a decision to leave the EU, while only around one in ten actually
thought it would be higher. This finding was commonplace across many another poll and survey.
NatCen’s mixed mode survey found that as many as 64% thought that immigration would be
lower, while only 7% reckoned it would be higher. Meanwhile, in its final poll before polling day,
YouGov reported that 53% felt that immigration would be lower if the UK voted to Leave, while
3% reckoned it would be higher.
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
Table 9 Perceptions of the Implications of Leaving the EU for Immigration to the UK
April/May
May/June
Immigration to the UK would be:
%
%
Much Lower
15
16
Lower
39
39
About the same
27
28
Higher
6
6
Much Higher
4
3
Don’t Know
9
8
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Waves 7 and 8
Of course, not everyone will have regarded higher immigration as something to be avoided (or,
indeed, lower immigration as something to be embraced). Yet in practice, there seems little doubt
that this is where most voters stood. The BES also asked its respondents to give themselves a
score of between 0 (which meant ‘many fewer’) and 10, (‘many more’) to indicate their views on
the number of migrants coming to the UK. During the referendum campaign, as many as 51%
gave themselves a score of three or less (including as many as 29% who said zero), while 26%
marked themselves between four and six and another 11% said, ‘Don’t Know’. Only 11% gave
a response of between seven and ten, implying that they would like to see more immigration.
Moreover, it is those who most wanted to see immigration reduced (that is, those who gave
themselves a score of between zero and three) who were most likely to think that it would actually
fall if the UK left the EU; no less than 74% of this group believed that would be the case.
But what link is there between these views and people’s evaluations of the economic consequences
of leaving the EU? The answer appears to be, ‘Quite considerable.’ First of all, as illustrated in
Table 10, around three-quarters (77%) of those who disagreed that being in the EU undermines
Britain’s distinctive identity expected the economy to be worse if the UK left the EU, compared
with just 10% of those who agreed with the proposition. Meanwhile, as shown in Table 11, as
many as 72% who would like to see increased migration into the UK reckoned that the economy
would worsen in the wake of a decision to leave the EU, compared with just 12% of those who
wanted many fewer migrants. It seems that if voters were concerned about the implications of the
EU for immigration and Britain’s sense of identity, they were relatively disinclined to accept the
Remain side’s message on the economy. And given that both concerns were so widespread, this
appears to have constituted a considerable handicap to the effectiveness of the Remain side’s
campaigning efforts.
THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
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Table 10 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Perceptions of
the Impact of the EU on Britain’s identity
Being a member of the European Union undermines Britain’s distinctive identity
Strongly
Agree
Agree
Neither Agree
Nor Disagree
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Expect economy after
leaving the EU to be
%
%
%
%
%
Better
54
31
13
4
5
Same
39
47
40
17
7
Worse
4
14
36
74
86
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Wave 8
Table 11 Perceptions of the Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU by Attitudes towards
Immigration
View on How Many Migrants Should Be Allowed Into the UK
Many Fewer
Fewer
As is
More
Expect economy after
leaving the EU to be
%
%
%
%
Better
41
26
11
8
Same
40
40
26
16
Worse
12
26
58
72
Many Fewer: score of 0 on 0-10 scale; Fewer: 1-3; As Is: 4-6; More: 7-10.
Source: 2015 British Election Study Internet Panel Wave 8
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)
CONCLUSION
The Remain side did not lose the economic argument in the referendum. Voters were more likely
to think that leaving the EU would be economically harmful than they were to believe that it would
be beneficial. Moreover, those who were persuaded of the Remain side’s message were nearly
unanimous in going on to vote Remain in the referendum.
However, the Remain campaign did not win the economic argument as well as it needed to. Well
under half of voters were persuaded that Britain’s economy would suffer if it left the EU – and a
referendum campaign has to secure over half the vote in order to win.
There were, it seems, three key reasons why this proved to be the case. First, many voters were
not convinced that EU membership had been economically beneficial in the past or would be in
future. Cries about the economic damage that would arise were always at risk of sounding hollow
when many voters were not convinced that EU membership was advantageous in the first place.
Second, too few voters accepted the authority of those who were arguing the economic case for
remaining in the EU. Experts in general and those associated with the financial world in particular
were regarded with widespread scepticism, not least perhaps because of the fallout from the
2008 financial crash. Meanwhile those politicians who were arguing the Remain case were less
likely to be trusted and heeded than were those on the Leave side.
Finally, however, the Remain side’s attempts to persuade voters of the economic case for staying
in the EU were being made against the backcloth in which on other issues, most notably identity
and immigration, many a voter was sceptical about the merits of staying in the EU. Unsurprisingly
perhaps, for many the EU came as a package and thus they did not necessarily consider the
economic arguments in isolation from those about other aspects of EU membership. Certainly
trying to win a referendum with a one-legged stool was always a potentially fragile exercise.
These findings have important implications for the debate that is now taking place about the
terms the UK should be seeking to agree with the EU as it negotiates its withdrawal from the
institution. First, a deal in which the UK remains a member of the single market in return for
continuing to accept freedom of movement in its current form could well fail to secure popular
approval. It would seem that too few voters are convinced of the benefits of the former and too
many are concerned about the consequences of the latter for them to be easily persuaded of the
merits of such a deal. Meanwhile, perhaps we should not presume that any economic turbulence
that does arise from the decision to leave – such as an increase in food prices as a result of the
post-referendum decline in the value of the pound – will necessarily persuade many voters to
change their minds on the merits of leaving the EU. They may be inclined to lay the blame on the
financial institutions that have overseen the decline in the value of sterling rather than on their
choice to leave the EU.
That said, it is also the case that, as the current Chancellor has argued, nobody voted to make
themselves poorer (Hammond, 2016). Most people voted the way that they did in the belief that
Britain would at least not be worse off economically as a result of their choice. So the challenge
facing the UK government is to emerge with a future relationship with the EU that persuades
voters that it will be possible to achieve that minimal condition. Little wonder that it is taking its
time working out what relationship it would in fact like to secure.
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THE ECONOMICS OF BREXIT IN VOTERS’ EYES (OR, WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN FAILED)